Evan's Gate Page 6

  “Dai, isn’t it?” Evan asked.

  “I know you.” The man’s face broke into a boyish smile. “You used to wear a uniform. Did they take it away from you?”

  “No. I’ve moved to what they call the plainclothes branch now. I’m a real detective.”

  “Oh, I see.” Dai looked impressed. “Do you drive a police car?”

  “What are you doing down here, Dai?” Evan asked. “Do you live down here now?”

  “I live at the home. Do you know it? It’s very nice.”

  Evan remembered there was some sort of sheltered accommodation for people like Dai in Porthmadog. He’d had to visit it once when one of the residents had started exposing himself on the beach.

  “Yes, I know it, Dai. In Porthmadog, isn’t it? How long have you lived there?”

  “Since my mam died. Don’t know how long that is. A long time now. They said she didn’t suffer, so that’s good, isn’t it?”

  Evan nodded. “Yes. That’s good. So what are you doing out on the beach? Bird-watching, is it? Is that your hobby?” A thought swiftly crossed his mind before he dismissed it. Crazy but harmless, remember.

  “It’s all right at the home,” Dai said, “but they have the telly on all day. I can’t hear myself think, and I don’t like being cooped up inside. I’m not used to it, see.”

  “Of course you’re not. So now you go out bird-watching, is it?”

  Dai nodded. “Mrs. Presli lends me her binoculars if I’m very careful with them. They’re very good. You can watch birds flying.”

  “What kind of birds do you like?”

  “The white ones,” Dai said, pointing up at the wheeling seagulls. “They’re pretty, aren’t they?”

  Evan composed the sentence carefully in his head before he asked it. “I bet you can see a lot of things through those binoculars, right, Dai?”

  “Oh yes. All kinds of things.” Dai beamed.

  “You weren’t out on the beach this morning, were you? Because if you were, you might be able to help the police.”

  Dai nodded, his big head bobbing up and down on the scrawny neck. “All right.”

  “Listen, Dai. A little girl was playing on the beach farther along at the caravan park. You didn’t happen to see her, did you?”

  “Her name’s Ashley.”

  Evan started. “You know the little girl I’m talking about?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve seen her on the beach before. I spoke to her once and she told me her name.”

  Evan felt his pulse quickening. “What about this morning, Dai? Were you out here this morning?”

  “I think so. After the rain they said I could go out, but I didn’t get far before it was lunchtime.”

  “Were you on the beach here?”

  Dai mused about this. “Somewhere along here.”

  “But did you see Ashley this morning? Did you see the little girl?” Evan insisted.

  Dai shook his head. “The beach was empty, except for the birds.”

  “Did you walk? Along the road and through Borth? You didn’t see Ashley going for a ride in a car, did you?”

  Dai shook his head again, then he said thoughtfully, “She might have gone up the mountain, though. I saw some people going up the mountain.”

  The German couple, Evan thought. “How many, Dai?”

  “I don’t know. They were far-off. Two or three, maybe?”

  “And as you walked along the road, you didn’t notice any strange cars parked, maybe with a man sitting inside, did you?”

  Dai nodded. “There was one strange car parked near here.”

  “There was?”

  Dai nodded again, his head going up and down like one of those animals that nod in the back of cars.

  “Really? What did it look like, Dai?”

  “It was white and it had a word painted on the front.”

  “Oh,” Evan said in disappointment. “Did that word say ‘Heddlu, Police,’ Dai?”

  “Might have done,” Dai said.

  “Right. Thanks for your help then, Dai.” Evan held out his hand. “Listen, Dai. The little girl has gone missing. If you find her, you’ll come and tell us, won’t you? Or if you find any toys that she might have left on the beach?”

  “She’s lost?” Dai asked, his eyes looking surprised and sad. “Ashley’s lost. Is that why all the policemen were here?”

  “That’s right. So anything you can do to help find her …”

  “I’ll help find her,” Dai said. “She had pretty hair, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did. Bye then, Dai. Hwyl.”

  Dai stared at Evan like a dog that is about to be abandoned. Evan had to smile. “Do you want a ride back in my car, Dai?” he asked. “I’ll take you home.”

  Dai’s face lit up. “Then I won’t miss tea,” he said, and trotted along beside Evan like an obedient pet. On his way into town Evan radioed to HQ that he was on his way in and was told that the D.I. was expecting him at the Porthmadog police station.

  “No news about the little girl then?” he asked. “I gather Mrs. Sholokhov went somewhere in a police car, so I hoped that …”

  “No, I expect W.P.C. Howells took her out for a cup of tea, poor thing,” the dispatcher said.

  “Oh, right. Tell the D.I. I’ll be there in five minutes then.”

  He dropped off Dai at the home and arrived a few minutes later to find the room full of blue uniforms. D.I. Watkins was addressing them, perched on the edge of a table at the front. Evan was dismayed to see that D.C.I. Hughes, the senior detective in their division, was also there, looking dapper as usual in a well-cut, dark gray suit with a white silk handkerchief protruding from the pocket.

  “Ah, here’s Evans at last,” Hughes said, managing to imply that he was somehow late and they’d all been waiting for him.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know there was to be a meeting,” Evan said. “I was out interviewing the people at the caravan park.”

  “I don’t suppose you came up with anything, did you?” Again he made it sound as if Evan wasn’t capable of coming up with anything. Evan was conscious of those uniformed coppers staring at him.

  “Not much,” he said. “The caravan park is almost empty. Nobody saw anything of the little girl at all this morning. The only thing that seemed strange to me was a German couple. They were leaving three days early, and they couldn’t wait to get out either.”

  “Did you let them go?” Hughes demanded.

  “Yes, sir. I had no reason to detain them. But I did take their car license number, and I have all their particulars, including mobile phone number.”

  “Ah. Good man,” Hughes said, at last handing out a small morsel of praise.

  “And they did have an alibi for this morning,” Evan said. “They climbed a mountain and then went for coffee in town. That should be easy enough to verify.”

  “I don’t suppose their departure had anything to do with this, anyway,” Watkins said. “And we can always find them again if we need them.”

  D.C.I. Hughes stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then, Watkins. You’ve got someone working on tracking down the father, have you?”

  “We’ve sent out a message to all the ports of exit to be on the lookout for him and the little girl,” Watkins said, “but as of now it’s still a missing child report, not an abduction.”

  “If I were you, I’d proceed as if this were an abduction and track down the father right away. It’s just possible that he paid someone to snatch the child and have her delivered to him. I’d have him tailed right away, Watkins.”

  “Very good, sir. Thanks for the suggestion.” His face was expressionless.

  The moment Hughes made his grand exit, Watkins muttered under his breath to Evan, “What the hell does he think we’re doing—waiting for him to tell us when to breathe? Sanctimonious git.” He looked up at the officers in the room. “Sorry about the interruption. Now where were we?”

  “Roberts was just about to give you his report, sir.”

>   “Ah yes. Roberts—beach area?”

  “Nothing, sir. I only saw one suspicious person, and he turned out to be Constable Evans.” This got a good laugh.

  Watkins consulted his notes. “So everything has turned up negative. No possible sightings in Criccieth or Borth or Porthmadog. Nothing found on the beach or the dunes. And all the adjacent homes have been contacted, have they?”

  “Yes, sir. Jones and I did that. No one’s seen her.”

  “And Evans, you had another go around the caravan park. What was this about the German couple?”

  “They were rushing to get away, sir. The man said something about his girlfriend being upset by the whole thing and just wanting to get out of there.”

  “And you thought there was more to it than that?”

  “I really don’t know. I’d like to have searched their caravan. I did take a look inside the car, it was one of those Beetles and easy enough to look inside, and I didn’t see anything suspicious there.”

  “You don’t think they could have taken the child? They really were German and not Russian, I suppose?”

  “They sounded German to me,” Evan said. “And they had a German license plate.”

  “We should keep an eye on them,” Watkins said. “Where were they heading, did they say?”

  “Maybe up to Scotland, they thought.”

  “Okay. Give me the car number. We’ll get it to the ports in case they decide to do a bunk on us. The port authority police are going to be fed up with hearing from us.” He adjusted the papers in front of him. “Right. So what have we got? Searches of the area negative. Dogs turned up nothing. Did they manage to bring in the bloodhound?”

  “Yes, sir, but he couldn’t pick up a trail on the beach. We thought the original area where she’d been playing was probably underwater by the time the dog got there.”

  “That’s a lot of bloody use then. So the only thing we’ve got to go on, apart from Evans’s Germans, is the mother’s suspicion that the father is responsible. I’ve already got someone working on contacting the father. And just in case it wasn’t him, but a stranger abduction, we’ve got someone printing up posters for us to put up around the area. Any other suggestions?”

  “Has anyone searched the mountain yet?” Evan asked.

  “You mean the hill behind the site?”

  “I know it’s not over one thousand feet, but I’ve always thought of it as a mountain myself,” Evan insisted. “I’ve just spoken to someone who says he saw two or three people up there this morning. By the way, you’ll never guess who it was. Remember Daft Dai?”

  “The one who claimed he’d killed those men on the mountain?” Watkins grinned.

  “Daft Dai? Oh, we all know him,” Roberts said. “He’s always coming into the station and asking to be arrested. I think he likes the tea and buns we give him.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” a young policewoman raised her hand, “but shouldn’t we be checking him out? I mean it has been known before that someone who is mentally unbalanced goes after a little girl.”

  “This one’s harmless, I think, Gwen,” Watkins said.

  “And he was genuinely startled when he heard that the little girl was lost,” Evan said. “Given his desire to be arrested, I think we have to take it that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

  “And yet you still think we should search your bloody mountain, Evans?”

  “Just a thought, sir. To make sure we’ve covered all bases.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It would be easy enough to hide a child up there among the rocks and heather. How do you boys feel? Are you up to another search party before it gets dark?”

  “Of course, sir.” One of the constables got to his feet. “Anything we can do to find the little girl. You’ll want the dogs, won’t you?”

  “Absolutely. Then let’s get back there. We’ve got four hours before it gets dark. That should be long enough to give it a thorough going-over.”

  “There’s one more thing I thought I should mention,” Evan said, as the meeting dispersed and they walked to Watkins’s vehicle together. “You know Mrs. S. said that Ashley had had an operation ? Well, the park owner says that it was a heart transplant.”

  “A heart transplant? Bloody hell,” Watkins said.

  Evan opened the passenger side door and got in. “So she’d be on all kinds of drugs, wouldn’t she? So how could her mother have forgotten to mention them to us?”

  “We’d better pay her another visit on the way over,” Watkins said, as they pulled out of the car park.

  “I tried to as soon as I found out, but apparently the W.P.C. had taken her to get a cup of tea.”

  “She should be back by now. Did the park owner say anything else interesting?”

  “She said that Mrs. S. went out a lot, always coming and going.”

  “Bit of a nosey parker, this park owner, would you say?”

  “Definitely. She’s miffed with Shirley Sholokhov because she thought they could have some good chats, and then Shirley kept herself to herself.”

  Watkins chuckled. “But if she notices when Shirley comes and goes, you’d have thought she’d have spotted a strange car or a strange man, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s what I thought, but she says there are several places where someone could slip through the hedge to a car parked in the lane.”

  Evan shook his head as they left the town behind. “You’d have thought someone would have seen something, wouldn’t you? It’s so exposed here. If someone grabbed Ashley from the beach, he’d have had to sprint across a couple of fields with the child in his arms. Don’t tell me that nobody would have noticed.”

  “It is pretty empty at this time of year,” Watkins said. “Even so, he would have been taking a terrible risk.”

  “If it were Ashley’s father, he was obviously willing to risk anything to get her. You’d risk anything to get your daughter back, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yep. I suppose I would,” Watkins agreed.

  And yet Mrs. Paul had described him as a bastard, moody, violent.

  They drove into the meadow and parked beside the blue car. This time the door was opened by W.P.C. Howells. “Oh, hello, Inspector, hello, Constable Evans,” she said. “Any news yet?”

  “Not yet. How’s Mrs. Sholokhov holding up?”

  “Not too well. The doctor’s given her a sedative,” she said in a low voice, glancing back into the van.

  “Is she still awake because we have to ask her something,” Watkins said.

  “You can try, but don’t upset her again if you can help it, will you? She was in a terrible state earlier, threatening to kill herself if anything happened to Ashley.”

  “It won’t take a minute.” Watkins stepped past her into the caravan. Evan followed. Mrs. Sholokhov was lying on the bed, looking pale and haggard. She opened tired eyes as Watkins sat down beside her, then struggled to sit up.

  “Any news?” she asked.

  Watkins put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. “We’re doing everything we can, but don’t worry. We’ve alerted all the ports. Your husband won’t be able to leave the country with her. It’s only a matter of time before we find them.”

  She nodded, pressing her lips together.

  Watkins looked up at Evan, who stepped forward. “There was one thing, Mrs. Sholokhov,” Evan said. “I understand that your little girl had a heart transplant. Is that right?”

  She nodded again. “One of the youngest recipients the hospital had ever done,” she said.

  “So she’s presumably on medication?”

  “Of course she is.”

  “But you didn’t think it was important to mention it to us this afternoon?” Watkins asked.

  “I should have done, shouldn’t I?” She brought one hand up clumsily toward her face. “I just can’t think straight. But don’t worry, if she’s with Johnny, he’ll make sure she takes it. He was always fanatical about her taking her pills. And he has copies of h
er prescriptions for the times she stayed overnight with him. So she’ll be fine, unless he takes her to Russia.” A sob rose in her throat. “Oh, God. Who knows what kind of primitive medicines they have over there?”

  W.P.C. Howells sat on the bed beside her and patted her reassuringly. “They’ll find him before he gets to Russia. Now you just try and have a little sleep.” Her look told Watkins and Evan to leave.

  “She’s pretty much convinced that Ashley’s father took her, isn’t she?” Evan said, as they walked back to the car.

  Watkins stared up at the mountain. “I hope to God she’s right.”

  Chapter 8

  The sun was sinking as a red ball into the layer of sea fog on the horizon as the tired search party finally picked its way down the mountain. They had found nothing but a child’s hair slide with a teddy bear on it, which could have been lying there for ages. Evan and Watkins had taken the main path up to the summit while the crew fanned out, moving up through the rocks and heather from the road. After all the rain, the path was extremely muddy.

  “We might just get lucky and pick up footprints if anyone brought the kid up here,” Watkins said. “Of course, if anyone brought her up here, he was probably carrying her, but then his prints would be heavier than usual.”

  Evan stared at the path ahead. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Those Germans said they hiked the mountain this morning, but they certainly didn’t take this path. Look at this—a herd of sheep came across here and there were no sheep on the mountain today —and there are no prints on top of the sheep, are there?”

  “They could have chosen not to take the path,” Watkins agreed. He glanced up at Evan. “You suspect those Germans of something, don’t you?”

  “Let’s say they made me a trifle uneasy.”

  “I think you’ve got good instincts, boyo. When we come down, I’ll have their car stopped and searched, and we’ll get in touch with the German police too—just in case.”

  Pink twilight was glowing on the mountainsides and highlighting the last of the snow as Evan finally drove up the pass to Llanfair. Rivulets of water cascaded down the steep green slopes and danced along the side of the road. The bleating of new lambs floated on the evening breeze. Evan felt the tension melting away. Now he knew why it was so important to live in the cottage. It was remote, removed from all the tensions and tragedies going on in the world. Once he got home, he’d be in a haven of peace.